"The debate about free
will, long the purview
of philosophers alone,
has been given new life
by scientists,
especially
neuroscientists studying
how the brain works. And
what they're finding
supports the idea that
free will is a complete
illusion."

"In an intriguing review
in the July 2 edition of
the journal Science,
published online
Thursday, Ruud Custers
and Henk Aarts of
Utrecht University in
the Netherlands lay out
the mounting evidence of
the power of what they
term the 'unconscious
will.'...John Bargh of
Yale University, who 10
years ago predicted many
of the findings
discussed by Custers and
Aarts in a paper
entitled "The Unbearable
Automaticity of Being,"
called the Science
paper a "landmark —
nothing like this has
been in Science
before."

"Some
people think that
quantum mechanics shows
that determinism is
false, and so holds out
a hope that we can be
ultimately responsible
for what we do. But even
if quantum mechanics had
shown that determinism
is false (it hasn’t),
the question would
remain: how can
indeterminism, objective
randomness, help in any
way whatever to make you
responsible for your
actions? The answer to
this question is easy.
It can’t."

"In modern science, it is
difficult to find the
gap into which to slip
free will—the uncaused
causer—because there
seems to be no part of
the machinery that does
not follow in a causal
relationship from the
other parts."

"The philosophical
definition of free will
uses the phrase 'could
have done otherwise'... "As a neuroscientist,
you've got to be a
determinist. There are
physical laws, which the
electrical and chemical
events in the brain
obey. Under identical
circumstances, you
couldn't have done
otherwise; there's no
'I' which can say 'I
want to do otherwise'."

"The
discovery that humans
possess a determined
will has profound
implications for moral
responsibility. Indeed,
Harris is even critical
of the idea that free
will is "intuitive": he
says careful
introspection can cast
doubt on free will. In
an earlier book on
morality, Harris argues
'Thoughts simply arise
in the brain. What else
could they do? The truth
about us is even
stranger than we may
suppose: The illusion of
free will is itself an
illusion'"

If you think carefully
about any decision you
have made in the past,
you will recognize that
all of them were
ultimately based on
similar—genetic or
social—inputs to which
you had been exposed.
And you will also
discover that you had no
control over these
inputs, which means that
you had no free will in
taking the decisions you
did.

Cause and Effect
– At about the 5th century BC,
in his work On the Mind,
the Greek Philosopher Leucippus
penned the earliest known
universal statement describing
what we today understand as
determinism, or the law of cause
and effect

“Nothing happens at random,
but everything for a reason and
by necessity.”

Human Will –
The concepts of will and free
will are actually Christian in
orgin. It was Saint Paul in his
Letter to the Romans, which is
dated at about 58 A.D., who
first discovered this thing we
call human will. He came to it
by recognizing that he could not
often do as much right as he
wanted. Saint Paul wrote in
Romans 7:15 that:

“I don’t understand myself at
all, for I really want to do
what is right, but I can’t.” I
do what I don’t want to – what I
hate.” (Translation – The Living
Bible)

Free Will --
Nothing new was said on the
matter for the next few hundred
years until St. Augustine
grappled with the concepts of
evil and justice. Saint
Augustine wrote in his book
De Libero Arbitrio, 386-395
A.D., (translated as “On Free
Will”)

“Evil deeds are punished by
the justice of God. They would
not be punished justly if they
had not been performed
voluntarily.”

The problem he saw was that
if human beings do not have a
free will, it would be unfair
for God to arbitrarily reward or
punish us. St. Augustine
concluded that God could not be
unfair, and so he created the
concept of a human free will,
whereby we earn our reward or
punishment by what we freely do.

Scientific concepts
relating to the determined will
vs. free will question

Classical Mechanics
-- In 1687 Sir Isaac Newton
publishes his “Laws of Motions”
that mathematically describes
the physical universe as acting
in a mechanistic manner
according to the principle of
cause and effect.

We can measure the position
of a particle or the momentum of
a particle (momentum meaning its
direction and velocity), but we
cannot simultaneously measure
the position and momentum of a
particle.

Copenhagen
Interpretation of Quantum
Mechanics -- Niels Bohr
and others make the following
assertions;

1) Particles do not have a
simultaneous position and
momentum.

2) Elementary particles
behave indeterministically, and
are not subject to the principle
of cause and effect.

Believers in free will saw
the Heisenberg Uncertainty
Principle and Copenhagen
Interpretation of Quantum
Mechanics as providing a
possibility for free will to
exist. They asserted that if
elementary particles behave
indeterministically, they are
not subject to the principle of
cause and effect that prohibits
free will.

But, as noted above, it
eventually became apparent that
indeterminism also prohibits
free will.

Episode 15. Why
Frankfurt's “Second Order Desires”
Do Not Allow for a Free Will

Free will being
an illusion, and not representative
of how things really are, our belief
in it is very problematic to our
actions on both a personal and
global level. It leads to blame,
accusations, conflict, competition,
self-blame, arrogance, envy, and
creates a lot of problems. My hope
is that as we overcome this
illusion, we’ll create a much more
intelligent, compassionate, and
understanding world.

When we say that
we have a free will, we are saying
that our decisions are completely up
to us. Neither genetics nor
environment -- including what we
learned or didn’t learn in the past,
can influence our behavior. A free
will would give us the ability to
over-ride any, and all, influences,
and make decisions completely on our
own.

The two strongest
refutations to that are that,
firstly, we have an unconscious
where all of our memories are
stored. That unconscious is
obviously not in our control. We’re
not even conscious of it. It’s also
the part of our brain that contains
the processes by which we make our
decisions. When we make a decision,
we’re not thinking to ourselves,
“Why exactly did I decide that?”
“What calculations did I use?” This
all takes place at the level of the
unconscious. If both the data and
the processing for making decisions
occur in the unconscious, obviously
that makes free will impossible.
Our decisions are being made at a
level of our mind that we’re not in
control of, and that we’re not even
aware of in real time.

The second reason
free will is impossible is that
everything has a cause. If we make
a decision, there is a cause for
that decision. And there’s a cause
for that cause, and a cause for that
cause, and if you follow that chain
of cause and effect back through its
history, it stretches back to before
we were born.

Let’s begin
refuting Frankfurt’s “Second Order
Desires” claim against free will.
Harry Frankfurt is a philosopher who
claims that while other animals have
“first order” desires, human beings
have both first and second order
desires. An example of a first
order desire might be that we want
something to eat because we’re on a
diet, and want to lose some weight.
A second order desire, in this case,
would be that we want something to
eat, but would rather that we didn’t
want something to eat.” It’s a
desire about a desire.

Frankfurt is
saying that because we have second
order desires, that prospect would
somehow give us a free will. There
is no logic in that, as we’ll see
later, but that’s his assertion.
Let’s first defend our animal
friends. Throughout history, we’ve
made claims that animals don’t feel,
and we’ve treated animals horribly
because of this absurd notion.
Whether it is farm animals or lab
animals, we refuse to acknowledge,
and admit to ourselves, that they
absolutely do feel pain.

There is no
evidence for the assertion that
animals don’t have second order
desires. For example, a dog named
Cachidulo lives an apartment, and
wants to pee. He wants to pee, but
there is no one around to take him
out for a walk.

Cachidulo knows
that in the past when he’s gone to
the bathroom on a carpet or other
floor, he has been punished. We can
all relate to the idea that a dog
would have that understanding.
Naturally, Cachidulo would very
probably want to not want to go to
the bathroom. Cachidulo is probably
saying to himself, “Gee I wish I
didn’t have to go to the bathroom,
because I would rather not get
punished afterwards. Dogs clearly
have second order desires.

Let’s say we have
a second order desire. We want to
not want to eat, or we want to not
want to smoke, or not want to
whatever. But, how would that grant
us a free will? A want is a reason,
and whether it’s a direct want or a
want about a want, it’s causal. If
it’s a want about a want – if I
would want to not want to eat –
there will be a reason for wanting
that. When you have a reason, you
have a cause. So, the simple
refutation to these Frankfurt-style
second order desire arguments for
free will is “No, a second order
desire in no way allows the decision
to escape this law of causality that
governs everything.

Second order
desires are not a valid
demonstration of free will because
of causality. Naturally, the
causality of the unconscious refutes
this claim equally well. That
second order desire – that wanting
to not want something – is taking
place at the level of the
unconscious. It is drawing from
information stored in the
unconscious. There have to be
reasons why we would want, or not
want, to do something. There is
also our reasoning process. If all
of our data – our memories and other
stored information – is in our
unconscious, then the processing of
our decisions must also be made at
the level of the unconscious. We
can understand how we have no
control over our unconscious. The
unconscious is certainly a part of
us – no one is disputing that – but
it’s a part that we have absolutely
no real-time control over.

It’s as if your
hand was saying “I made this
decision to put myself here,”
whereas the reality is that your
mind made the decision. Our
conscious mind simply becomes aware
of decisions that the unconscious
makes, and claims credit for them.
There are actually many experiments
in neuroscience and psychology, like
experiments with hypnosis, that
demonstrate this misattribution.
For example, subjects are hypnotized
and given a post-hypnotic suggestion
to do something. They come out of
the hypnosis, and perform the
post-hypnotic suggestion. They are
then asked why they did what they
did. They then make up a reason,
or, more sincerely, plead
ignorance. They express no
recognition, or knowledge, that the
reason they did what they did was
because of the post-hypnotic
suggestion.

Every decision is
made at the level of the
unconscious, because that is where
at least some of the data is. The
decision making process must also be
unconscious to be able to access
that data. Naturally, since we
can’t control the unconscious, the
decisions it makes cannot be thought
of as having been freely made by our
conscious mind.

Frankfurt had a
few other claims that are a mistaken
in terms of how they would allow for
a free will. He claims that free
will is having the will that we
want. In other words, if we can
want what we want to want, to him
that’s free will. But that’s not
free will. That’s just luck. If we
have a will to stop smoking, for
example, and we’re actually able to
succeed with this, we’re fortunate.
Such fortune in no way demonstrates
that our want was freely willed.

When we consider
the question of human will in terms
of wants, or desires, we understand
why free will is impossible. We’re
not in control of our desires.
Whether we desire a certain kind of
food, or experience, or music, or
clothing, or whatever, these are
preferences that are the complete
result of genetics and past
experience. We can’t, at the moment
we’re making a decision, just choose
our desires. They have been chosen
for us by this causal process of
nature and nurture.

Frankfurt makes
another kind of curious assertion.
He says that some people are what he
describes as “wontons.” He says
that these people don’t have impulse
control. They can’t control their
impulses, so they naturally don’t
have a free will. He’s, of course,
right about impulses. We all have
impulses, and to the extent that we
can’t control them, that naturally
demonstrates that the impulses, and
not a free will, are controlling us.

But, he claims
that those of us who can control our
impulses have a free will. Why does
that not make sense? Let’s say we
control an impulse. Why did we do
that? There must have been a
reason. Once we have a reason for
doing something, we have a cause for
doing something. Naturally, that
cause has a cause, and that cause
has a cause, and you end up with a
causal regression leading to before
our planet was created.

Any time there’s
a question regarding why we do
anything, or an assertion that we
have a free will, the refutation is
always the same. For example, one
plus one is always going to equal
two. That will be the answer
whether the ones are in Roman
numerals or Chinese characters, or
whatever. It’s always the same
answer. With any claim to a free
will, there are two basic answers.
The first is causality. If a
decision, to control our impulse has
a reason, that reason is a cause.

Causality is the
reason why the decision is not
freely willed. The other
reason is the unconscious. We
generally tend to think somewhat
linguistically. Some of us think
more in terms of imagery, but our
thinking tends to involve the memory
of concepts like “table,” and
“chair,” which are stored in our
memory. In order to make a decision
about whatever, we have to consider
it. If that information is not
consciously available to us, it must
be stored in the unconscious. It
has to be, because for it to be
consciously available, we would have
to be aware at the moment of any
decision every word and every memory
that we’ve ever had. That is
clearly impossible. We have to
study to take tests. If we had a
free will, we could just commit
something to memory, and at test
time just write it without
hesitation, because we could freely
draw whatever we willed from our
memory bank. Obviously, very few of
us can do that to any substantial
degree, and even we who can, at a
certain point, fail at accessing the
memories. It is always our
unconscious that allows us to access
any of that information.

The unconscious
not only stores the data upon which
we’re making decisions, impulse
control, or whatever, but also our
actual decision making processes.
Why are we deciding one way rather
than another? Is it a moral
decision? Is it a hedonic
decision? Is it a rational
decision? These are all
considerations that are taking place
at the unconscious level. We
obviously don’t consciously go
through the entire process of why
we’re making a decision when we
think. That’s often what a gut
feeling is about. Someone asks us
something, and we wait for the
answer to come to us.

Let’s briefly
discuss the notion of second order
desires from the standpoint of
desires. Desires are conditioned to
a great extent. The foods we prefer
are different from the foods people
from other countries prefer. This
starts very early.

We’re conditioned
to like something, or not.
Sometimes even at a very early age,
you find that mothers will try to
get their kids to eat spinach and
some other foods. It doesn’t always
work. Sometimes our desires are
genetic. Our strongest desire – the
one actually responsible for all of
our decisions, including moral
decisions-- is the hedonic desire,
or the desire to seek pleasure and
avoid pain. We’re hard-wired for
that. All organisms are hard-wired
for that.

Let’s consider a
second order desire to stop eating.
Why would we want to do that?
Perhaps we want to be healthier, or
happier, or whatever. Any time we
desire to not want something, there
is a hedonic reason for that
desire. That reason relates to our
well-being. We predict that if we
don’t want to want a certain thing,
or don’t want to not want a certain
thing, that will make our life, or
the lives of those around us,
better. The hedonic imperative of
always seeking pleasure and avoiding
pain is a great way to understand
why we don’t have a free will. If
all of our decisions are based on
that imperative, obviously we can’t
have a free will.

We generally talk
about how our wills are completely
determined by causality, and how the
past moment completely determines
our will. But, we should remember
that everything is completely
causal. If you go outside and see
cars and people moving, and birds
flying, take notice that everything
is happening in a completely causal
way. We are actually taking part in
a kind of movie, and reality, or our
world, is the movie.

It’s even more
amazing than that, because generally
with a movie, the actors get to
interpret their roles somewhat.
Actors have some say in how they
interpret their character, and play
their role. But in this movie
called reality – our universe – we
don’t even get to interpret our
roles. Our every reaction to
everything is predetermined. What
I’m also saying is that it’s not
just human behavior that is causal.
It’s not just animal behavior that
is causal. The Sun, and the rain,
and the entirety of nature, are all
causal. It’s all predetermined. I
do not describe reality as
“predestined,” because that relates
to the religious concept that some
people are pre-destined to a better
or worse place in the afterlife.
But, essentially, everything that is
happening at this moment in time is
predetermined by cause and effect.

We’re spectators,
rather than the writers. We
experience, rather than decide.
From a religious perspective,
asserting that we have a free will
is like asserting that we are
mini-gods who “create” decisions.
However, if we believe in a God that
is all-powerful, all powerful means
that God’s decisions rule. Our
actions are basically expressing
God’s will. We’re instruments of
God. That way of understanding our
human will makes a lot of sense to
many of us. It feels a lot better
than describing us as robots or
puppets, or computers.

A computer is
programmed to do certain tasks, and
it has no free choice but to do
those tasks. We can accurately
describe ourselves as robots or
puppets or computers, but that
self-definition is impersonal. I
believe in God, because I define God
as everything, which makes God
synonymous with our universe. By
retaining our belief in God, and
understanding our lack of free will
within that context, we personify
both ourselves and our wider
reality. God is generally defined
as omniscient, or all-knowing. God
is also often described as
omnipresent, or everywhere. If God
is everywhere, we are a part of
God. Everything is a part of God.
There isn’t anything that exists
that isn’t a part of God.
Logically, if God created
everything, S/He had to have created
everything from Her/Himself. From
that standpoint, we’re the hands of
God. We’re the instruments of God,
and the vehicles for God’s will.

We’re certainly a
part of God, but we’re not the
decision making part. There is a
part of reality that you can define
as either the causal past or God,
although it’s more precisely defined
as the causal past. The question
then arises; does God have a free
will? Can God break this law of
causality? I’m not sure S/He can.
I would hope S/He can’t, because I
like to believe in a good and loving
God. That understanding obviously
doesn’t make sense because there are
so many not-so-good and unloving
things in the world. But, to the
extent that I ascribe a free will to
God, then I would have to hold
Her/Him responsible. If I
understand that God is compelled by
causality in every act, I can hold
God as innocent as we are.

When we fall for
the notion that we have a free will,
we hold ourselves responsible. We
indict ourselves, and convict
ourselves, and punish each other and
ourselves. When we understand that
we don’t have a free will, and we
hold ourselves as innocent, we’re
much more understanding.

Some of us are
afraid that if we abandon the
illusion of free will, everyone will
just do whatever they want, because
they will say, “You can’t blame me.
I’m programmed – blame the
universe.” The reason we would not
let that happen is because we’re
programmed, to be hedonic
creatures. We’re always going to
seek pleasure and avoid pain, both
as individuals and as a society.
This means that if someone is going
around doing something that is not
good for them, or us, we’re going to
take steps to not allow that. I
trust you now understand why the
Frankfurt second order desires
argument for free will just doesn’t
make sense.